Photos in Explorer VERY slow

[Guest]

OK, this may be fairly vague for a quick answer, but lets see what we can
figure out.

This problem started a good while ago, and I've just gotten fed up with it.
I don't know exactly what triggered it, but anyways...

My computer deals with photos very slowly. I have a 1.2 GHz P4, 512 MB RAM,
XP Home. If I open a folder with 20 or so pictures, the whole explorer
freezes, and takes a good 45 seconds or so before you start seeing the
outline of thumbnail icons. Once they've loaded, if I can scroll at all,
once I do, the same thing happens. It's basically like it's taking a REALLY
long time to create thumbnails of images. It didn't use to do this. Also,
I've noticed SOME of my folders will have a little "thumbs.db" file in there,
which I'm assuming is a little file that saves the thumbnails pics for later,
cause the folders with those open fast and smooth. So I've looked for ways
of creating those, but no luck.

I also have issues where sometimes the thumbnail will be the size of the
whole thumbnail icon, and sometimes it will be much smaller than the icon,
and look like it's only using 16 colors...basically rendering the thumbnail
useless (cause I can't tell what it is)

Anyone know what i can do to fix this?

 

[John Inzer]

First, here's some info on thumbs.db

What is thumbs.db
http://tinyurl.com/g4dt

Now...I would suggest doing a little maintenance:

Running Disk Cleanup, Error Checking and
Defrag on a regular schedule is a good idea.

(310312) Description of the Disk Cleanup
Tool in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310312

(315265) How to Perform Disk Error Checking
in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315265
(check the two boxes..."Automatically fix file
system errors" and "Scan for and attempt
recovery of bad sectors") the utility will run
the next time you restart your computer.
(run error checking repeatedly until it finds
no errors)

(314848) How to Defragment Your Disk
Drive Volumes in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314848

(305781) HOW TO: Analyze and Defragment
a Disk in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=305781

Now, navigate to your Temporary Internet Files
folder and delete everything in it...sub-folders
and all.

C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet Files

If your thumbs are still slow to populate...try
closing all programs and disable your virus
scanner (be sure you are logged off of the internet)

More info:

============================
============================

If you are using WinXP and have networked drives
setup as drives in explorer and the networked computer
is not available, you will get these long delays in bringing
up your picture folders, documents folders, etc. As soon
as you disconnect all non-local drives, the problem goes
away.

=============================
=============================

 

[Guest]

I do manage to keep a decent maintanence schedule for my computer, including
those tasks. But I've never seen an improvement in this issue.

 

[John Inzer]

"Tony Bullard" <wrote:

I do manage to keep a decent maintanence
schedule for my computer, including those tasks.
But I've never seen an improvement in this issue.

==================================
Try creating a new user account and see if it
makes a difference.

Do you run Spybot, AdAware, MSAntispyware,
A-Squared on a regular basis? If not give it a try.

 

[Guest]

hey John... have you reset your explorer thumbs larger? I did that and mine
sure did slow down.
Did you make sure that "do not cache thumbnails" is UNchecked?

 

[John Inzer]

hey John... have you reset your explorer
thumbs larger? I did that and mine sure
did slow down.

===========================
I use TweakUI to reduce the size
and quality of my thumbs. I set
it on...Low quality / 50 pixels.

 

[Guest]

goto folder options and make hidden files, protected and system files visible.

Search out all the thumbs.db files and delete them.

Let explorer render them over and see if things don't speed up.
Remember each folder upon first reopening will have to wait for the new set
of thumbs.